All
parents want their children to grow up in healthy, happy surrounds where
they can safely visit friends and go to the park or the shops, but it
has become increasingly difficult to find such an environment.

Indeed, says Martin Schultheiss, CEO of Harcourts Africa, many parents
have been led to choose homes in security estates in the past few years
in the belief that these are now the only places where their children
can enjoy a normal childhood.

However, homes in these enclaves are often beyond the financial
reach of young families and in any case, recent reports of criminal activity
within estates have emphasised the need to ensure that they are indeed
child-safe in just the same way as one would evaluate ordinary suburbs.

And there are measures prospective homebuyers can take to ensure that
any area they are interested in is really family-friendly, he says.

Of course you should look out for well-kept parks, streets and
school yards, as well as youngsters walking or biking to and from school
and mothers pushing prams to the shops, since these are good indicators
that the residents feel safe.

But you should also be sure to visit the neighbourhood at night
and over weekends when any negative aspects are likely to be more visible.
What if the main road becomes a hotrod track on Friday nights, or the
local pizzeria morphs into an unruly action bar on Saturday afternoons?
And you surely dont want to live where groups of youths seem to
have nothing better to do on a Sunday than spray graffiti on all the garden
walls.

It is also a good idea, says Schultheiss, to establish whether there
are useful family amenities in the area, such as sports fields, a tennis
club or a public pool, a library, a community centre and school after-care
centres for smaller children.

You should consult a good local estate agent to get these details,
as well as information about all the local schools, the areas crime
rate and the activities of the local community policing forum. In addition,
its bound to give you confidence if you find that the agent lives
happily in the area with his or her own family.